If you think commercial haunted houses are only good for a laugh, try your hand shuffling through the real deal.
Like you’d expect of a frontier city, Denver has plenty of historic houses and parks that are flush with creepy history. But what makes a haunted house, exactly? Is it just a neglected mansion that someone died in? Or any place with an inordinate history of death? (If that’s the case, you’ve probably thrown a haunted picnic in Denver: Cheesman Park and Congress Park both used to be massive cemeteries.)
It might seem counterintuitive, that those of us who claim to see (or more often hear) dead people rely heavily on scientific methods. Ghost hunters — groups intent on proving the existence of ghosts — visit potential haunts armed with video cameras, thermometers, Geiger counters and other devices in search of stray voices and fluctuations in temperature and radiation, which they submit as evidence of a paranormal presence.
Denver’s Chris Moon, a paranormal investigator, author and co-owner of Denver Ghost Tours, uses what he calls a “ghost phone” to communicate with spirits directly when he looks into a potentially haunted property. Though first conceived by Thomas Edison, the one Moon uses was built by Colorado’s own Frank Sumption in 2002. Moon has since championed the device — affectionally called “Frank’s Box” — which he said scans AM, FM and shortwave radio signals that spirits can manipulate to communicate, as an essential tool in his repertoire.
Of course, the device has its share of detractors, who generally argue any communication perceived through a ghost telephone is a case of—apophenia — the tendency to perceive design or a connection in randomness. Moon does live broadcasts on Facebook with the device so his audience can decide for themselves.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” he said.
But even Moon will tell you that not all things that go bump in the night are disgruntled ghosts.
“A lot of people mistake haunting for natural occurrence,” Moon said. “There have been many situations we’ve walked into where (the owner) believes their uncle is haunting their house and its really just noisy pipes. Not everything is haunted.”
Of course, to believe any house is haunted is to believe in ghosts. And not everyone in the haunted tour industry does.
“If there are ghosts out there, they are beyond the realms of what we know of as science,” said Capitol Hill Ghost Tour guide Phil Goodstein, author of 25 books on Denver history, including “The Ghosts of Denver: Capitol Hill,” which Goodstein said even his competition uses as the foundation for their ghost tours. Goodstein’s tours focus on Denver’s sordid past, simply relaying what books and sources have said and leaving the question of ghosts up to the beholder.
“Basically, this is urban folklore. It’s nothing you can go to an editor with and say, ‘I have definite proof that there is a ghost haunting the Cash Register Building.’ ”
With that in mind, we asked Goodstein and Moon about Denver properties that, if not haunted, should give you the willies. Find our favorite 8 below.
Address: 1128 Grant St.
Should real estate agents be responsible for disclosing rumors of a house’s unearthly dwellers to its clients?
It’s something to think about if you rent a space at the Peabody-Whitehead Mansion. The 19th century Queen Ann mansion was first inhabited by William Riddick Whitehead, a surgeon who, despite being considered successful in his day, had a vast majority of his patients die on the operating table or soon thereafter. According to Goodstein, after the mansion was converted into a restaurant/nightclub in 1955, there were reports of spooky mishaps like breaking glasses and mysterious forces propelling forks and knives around the kitchen.
Was it just bad service? Or something more sinister? That depends on how much credence you give to Goodstein’s tales about the property, like the jilted wife who hung herself on her wedding day. If you care to swing in and say hello, her ghost purportedly goes by the name Elloise.
Regardless of whether any of that actually happened hasn’t bothered realtors. Though the house is in disrepair, Goodsten said an investor began work to renovate the house into condos about six months ago.
You can’t pick your neighbors. And when you buy a house, you’re buying its history, Goodstein said.
“The folklore and traditions of the house are part and parcel of the character of the building.”
Harry Tammen House
Address: 1061 Humboldt St.
The haunting of the so-called Harry Tammen house implicates The Denver Post as much as the house itself. Tammen, its owner, also purchased The Evening Post (later The Denver Post) with Frederick Bonfils in 1895. Bonfils and Tammen notoriously ran sensationalized and fictitious stories in the early years of the paper.
Tammen’s bad reputation preceded him, and his neighbors offered to buy the property off of him instead of have him as a neighbor. He said he couldn’t sell it, and told them he was planning to build an elephant barn on the property. Tammen also owned a circus at the time. Instead, he built an architectural gem, designed by Edwin Moorman and finished in 1909. The house has had a turnover of new owners after his death in 1924, which have reported seeing his pet Doberman, Menchie, lounging around the property.
Others say they’ve heard elephants trumpeting in the house — perhaps, Goodstein suggests, an echo of the Post’s fake news past, when it trumpeted hot air through its subscribers mail slots.
Croke-Patterson Mansion
Address:—420 East 11th Ave.
The Croke-Patterson Mansion might be the king of Denver haunted houses. From dog suicides to reports of a former caretaker’s ghost roaming the premises, the house has a list of purported unsettling occurrences so long that it has—a book and documentary dedicated to it. Constructed in 1891, the imposing three-story mansion is one of a handful on Capitol Hill thought to be home to restless spirits. As a bed and breakfast, one of its suite’s black, white and yellow striped walls confirm it’s at least a victim of—scary-bad design. But is it really possessed?
Stephanie Smith, organizer of the 230-person-strong Denver Ghost Hunters group on online club site MeetUp, thinks so. She said her group recovered enough evidence from an investigation of the property in 2011 to file it squarely under “H” for haunted. Her tip: Check out a room and see for yourself — particularly the wine cellar. “It always has that ‘who’s there’ feeling,” she said.
Denver Botanic Gardens
Address: 1007 York St.
The Denver Botanic Gardens on York Street was a Catholic cemetery up until 1950, when the city and the church agreed to move it — and its 7,000-plus bodies — elsewhere. Apparently, the city had shoddy undertakers: Human remains have been found often enough in the years since the move that the Botanic Gardens keeps a forensic pathologist on call to ensure that bones they come across are indeed from the cemetery and not the result of foul play.
“It makes you think about some of the fertilizer at the Botanic Gardens,” Goodstein said. “Maybe that’s why they can grow such pretty flowers.”
That’s to say nothing of the Botanic Garden’s Waring House Mansion, a house abutting the property that’s rumored to have its own troubling history. It’s closed to the public, except during the Ghost in the Gardens tours that go through the property throughout October. Find out more on that here.
Cash Register Building
Address: 1700 Lincoln St.
Not all of Denver’s haunts are from the 19th century. Take downtown’s famous 50-floor Cash Register Building — currently branded as the Wells Fargo Building — for example. Does it sway because it’s a high-rise? Or is it roiling with ghosts?
On June 16, 1991, a bank robber killed four security guards while stealing $200,000 from the iconic downtown Denver building in an event known as the Father’s Day Massacre. Former Denver police sergeant James King was tried for the crime, and later acquitted. The case remains unsolved.
Since then, Goodstein, who mentions the building on some of his tours, said that its infamous wobble became pronounced soon after. He also claims that security guards have reported becoming mysteriously discombobulated while working in the building.
High Street Bar and Grill
Address:—3862 N. High St.
This century-plus-old bar in Five Points has changed hands frequently in the last decade. But in that time, it’s been a consistent attraction for ghost hunters, particularly after a Westword article highlighted an old owner’s reports of otherworldly encounters his patrons and employees had at the bar.
Moon said he was a part of the first ghost-hunting team to investigate the property, sometime in the early 2000s. In his account, he encountered a man who didn’t know he was dead.
“He thought he was still alive,” Moon said. “When we took groups there, he would think we were ghosts and thought we there to haunt him.”
Colorado State Capitol Building
Address: 200 E. Colfax Ave.
Politics already gives us the willies. But Denver’s Capitol Building might be housing more ancients than the ones you see roaming its steps at lunch time.
Goodstein regales his tours with ghost stories that would unite representatives on both sides of the aisle with fear. Rumor has it, disembodied heads have been seen floating in the ornate tunnel structure that lies under the capitol complex. If you believe that, it isn’t a leap to imagine, as Goodstein suggested, that they might serve as council to the legislature itself — literal talking heads. Or, have you heard the one about the ghost of the deceased elderly prospector who spends his time chipping gold off the building’s gilded dome? Take Goodstein’s ghost tour to find out more creepy folklore.
Lumber Baron Inn
Address:—2555 W. 37th Ave
Denver’s Lumber Baron Inn might be the most haunted building not just in Denver, but — to hear Moon tell it –— the world.
Located in the Highland neighborhood, Moon said it was the most active location he’s ever visited in his decade-plus career as a ghost hunter. In 1970, two teenage girls — Marrianne Weaver and Cara Lee Knoche — were slain in the building. Knoche was strangled to death. Weaver was shot in the head. The murderer was never found.
Moon claims to have made contact with the girls using his ghost telephone.
“If you go into a situation saying ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ there’s a good chance you’re going to see something,” Moon said. “I would be a fool not to believe” in the ghosts.
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Denver Ghost Tours
Phil Goodstein’s Walking Tours. Times, dates vary. $25. For more info, call—303-399-0093.
Chris Moon’s Denver Ghost Tour. $15-$35. Tours run nightly in October. For more info, call 877-880-6232 or visit denverghosttour.com.
Banjo Billy Denver Bus Tour. $17-$27. Tours run Thurs-Sun in October. Times vary. For more info, visit—banjobilly.com/buy-tickets.
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